How Much Do We Really Know about Race and Juries? A Review of Social Science Theory and Research

Social science findings are often overlooked or oversimplified by legal scholars who write about race and juries. This body of empirical research offers important theoretical and methodological contributions to the study of race and jury decision making, yet it is also marked by inconsistencies and common design limitations. In the present Article, we evaluate the state of this literature more critically and attempt to integrate its often disparate findings using psychological theories of racial bias and social judgment. Our review includes studies that measure the influence of a defendant\u27s race on the judgments of individual jurors; studies comparing the decision making of White and Black mock jurors; and a handful of studies that examine the impact of race at the group, or jury level. This analysis is followed by an exploration of a recent mock jury experiment that demonstrates the capabilities of social science re- search for investigating jury decision making in a controlled, yet highly realistic setting. Conclusions focus on future directions for the study of race and juries, and emphasize the general importance of utilizing multiple methodologies in any empirical investigation of the legal system

Implicit Bias in Daily Perceptions and Legal Judgments

In today’s demonstration, we explored the audience’s positive and negative associations with blacks and whites. The demonstration is an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test (www.projectimplicit.net), a computer-based task designed to explore mental connections between various concepts. Participants were presented with a list of concepts (stereotypically black and white names, pleasant and unpleasant concepts) in a column down the middle of a screen along with the response categories (black/white or Pleasant/Unpleasant) along the left and right sides. When reading a word, participants were asked to categorize it by slapping the knee (left or right) that corresponds to the category displayed on the left or right side of the screen. Their task was to do this as fast as possible, correcting any mistakes before going forward, and raising their hand after completing the last word in the list. We then noted the amount of time for a critical mass of participants (approximately seventy-five percent) to complete each trial. In simple trials, either names or valenced words are displayed. In two critical trials, both names and valenced words were presented simultaneously in the middle of the screen. The trials differ based on the pairings of the response categories, and these trials tend to show a drastic difference in completion times. When participants were required to use the same hand to categorize black names and unpleasant words or white names and pleasant words, they tended to respond almost twice as quickly as when using the same hand to categorize black names and pleasant words or white names and unpleasant words. While there are individual differences among the respondents, the demonstration provided audible and visceral evidence of the trend. We then asked the audience to interrogate the methodological and cultural implications of the task, ultimately concluding that the test potentially reveals the fairly widespread implicit negative associations with blacks. With this working hypothesis, we next discussed the nature of racial bias and its implications for judgment in legal domains

Lay Theories About White Racists: What Constitutes Racism (and What Doesn't)

Psychological theories of racial bias assume a pervasive motivation to avoid appearing racist, yet researchers know little regarding laypeople's theories about what constitutes racism. By investigating lay theories of White racism across both college and community samples, we seek to develop a more complete understanding of the nature of race-related norms, motivations, and processes of social perception in the contemporary United States. Factor analyses in Studies 1 and 1a indicated three factors underlying the traits laypeople associate with White racism: evaluative, psychological, and demographic. Studies 2 and 2a revealed a three-factor solution for behaviors associated with White racism: discomfort/unfamiliarity, overt racism, and denial of problem. For both traits and behaviors, lay theories varied by participants' race and their race-related attitudes and motivations. Specifically, support emerged for the prediction that lay theories of racism reflect a desire to distance the self from any aspect of the category ‘racist’

How Much Do We Really Know about Race and Juries? A Review of Social Science Theory and Research

The past decade has witnessed numerous high-profile criminal trials in which controversial verdicts have been attributed to racethe race of the defendant, the racial composition of a jury, an attorney playing the race card, and so on. A predominantly Black jury\u27s acquittal of O.J. Simpson and White jurors\u27 leniency in the police brutality cases of Rodney King and Amadou Diallo not only sparked public debate, but also led to rioting and violence. In the wake of trials such as these, many have questioned the viability of the American jury system.\u27 More specific questions regarding the influence of race on jury decision making also emerge from this spate of wellpublicized cases: How does a defendant\u27s race influence jurors\u27 perception and judgment? How does the racial composition of a jury affect its deliberations and final decision? Is the influence of race on jurors the same in all criminal trials

Race in the Courtroom: Perceptions of Guilt and Dispositional Attributions

The present studies compare the judgments of White and Black mock jurors in interracial trials. In Study 1, the defendant’s race did not influence White college students’ decisions but Black students demonstrated ingroup/outgroup bias in their guilt ratings and attributions for the defendant’s behavior. The aversive nature of modern racism suggests that Whites are motivated to appear nonprejudiced when racial issues are salient; therefore, the race salience of a trial summary was manipulated and given to noncollege students in Study 2. Once again, the defendant’s race did not influence Whites when racial issues were salient. But in the non-race-salient version of the same interracial case, White mock jurors rated the Black defendant more guilty, aggressive, and violent than the White defendant. Black mock jurors demonstrated same-race leniency in both versions of the trial, suggesting that racial issues are generally salient in the minds of Black jurors in interracial cases with Black defendants

Race in the Courtroom: Perceptions of Guilt and Dispositional Attributions

The present studies compare the judgments of White and Black mock jurors in interracial trials. In Study 1, the defendant’s race did not influence White college students’ decisions but Black students demonstrated ingroup/outgroup bias in their guilt ratings and attributions for the defendant’s behavior. The aversive nature of modern racism suggests that Whites are motivated to appear nonprejudiced when racial issues are salient; therefore, the race salience of a trial summary was manipulated and given to noncollege students in Study 2. Once again, the defendant’s race did not influence Whites when racial issues were salient. But in the non-race-salient version of the same interracial case, White mock jurors rated the Black defendant more guilty, aggressive, and violent than the White defendant. Black mock jurors demonstrated same-race leniency in both versions of the trial, suggesting that racial issues are generally salient in the minds of Black jurors in interracial cases with Black defendants

Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives from Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics: Question and Answer Session

A transcript of the Question and Answer session during the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Symposium, Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives from Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics

Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives from Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics: Question and Answer Session

A transcript of the Question and Answer session during the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Symposium, Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives from Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics